Starlight
by clockwork-faerie98
Summary: The Wishing Star hates her job-after all, what's the attraction in sitting in an inky void with nothing to do but listen to the constant complaining of the children down below? She's overjoyed when she falls to Earth, but the Man in the Moon wants her back. With the forces of Darkness rising again, will the Guardians be able to get the Star back where she belongs?
1. Intro

**So...I recently saw Rise of the Guardians, and I just gotta say...**

**Best. Movie. EVER!**

**I really wanted to write an OC for it, because there was just so much room to write one (there were even some possible ones mentioned in the movie, for crying out loud!) so I did some brainstorming and here's what I got.**

**This may very, very loosely resemble Neil Gaiman's _Stardust_, because, well, it shares some of the same aspects-namely the star that fell to Earth. However, it was based on a one-shot/drabble thing (also RotG) that I have posted somewhere on this site-if you wanna see it, feel free!**

**P.S. I do own Rise of the Guardians. Or at least, I own Rise of the Guardians in my mind. Unfortunately, the real world would tend to disagree with me.**

* * *

For centuries, people have _believed_ in the magic of the stars.

See the first star of night glimmering up in the sky? Every night, _millions_ of children pray to that star in hopes that their dearest wishes come true. Little voices whisper silent petitions to the Wishing Star, and she does her best to answer.

Yes, I said _she_.

Scientists would argue that the first star of evening is actually the planet Venus rising in the sky, or maybe a ball of flaming gas and dust a million miles away. They would be dead wrong. The First Star, the _Wishing _star, is a she. A she with mood swings and a temper and a strange love of watermelon.

She has sat up in the sky for a good four centuries, shining and twinkling and generally acting star-like. She's listened to every child's prayer, every petition. She acts as the emblem of hope and dreams for the world below. Hell, she has several songs dedicated to her.

Naturally, she is bored to tears.

How do I know all this?

Because I am the Wishing Star.

Trust me, there's not much worse than floating in an inky blackness for all eternity, listening to the faint songs of your sisters and the much, _much_ louder wishes of the children below. Don't get me wrong, I love kids, it's just…

Why can't the little buggers just _shut up_?

I have held this job for four hundred and fifty-two years. I don't know who I took over for, and frankly, I don't care. The only company I have is MiM, and while he tells the best stories, he is annoyingly silent whenever I ask him the one thing I want most to know: Why me?

I mean, what is my purpose? Why do _I _have to be the one to sit up here, watching the joy and pain and love of humanity play out below, never getting to experience it first-hand? Why do _I _have to choose whose wishes to grant and who to disappoint?

Over the centuries, I have watched the world grow old from my vantage point high in the sky. None of the children or even adults on Earth suspect they're actually wishing to an eternal teenager with a rather quick temper. Hell, even the _Guardians_—the protectors of Earth, of childhood—have no idea that I exist. To them, I'm just another flaming ball of gas and dust.

Lovely.

Yes, I am the Wishing Star. I have lived in the sky for 452 years and I was just about to wish for a bullet to put through my head when something _happened_.

I am the Wishing Star, and the best day of my life was the day I fell from the sky.

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**Well, here it is. The intro. If you think that this might be a good story, I would love, love, love a review.**

**Thanks!**


	2. The Fall

**OH. MY. GOD.**

**Guys, I opened my email up a couple days ago and...OH. MY GOD.**

**I nearly had a heart attack.**

_**Eight **_**reviews. On an _intro_. Guys, that's insane.**

**Not that I mind.**

**Thank you so much for the incredibly overwhelming response. You guys are just so amazing that I have no words.**

**I hope this chapter lives up to expectations.**

**Thank you all! Oh, and I don't own ROTG.**

* * *

"Snow day!" Excited cries echoed up and down the street as hundreds of children burst out of their houses, crying in delight at the foot-deep snow drifts covering the streets.

Jack Frost was, as usual, in the middle of it all. But instead if floating up and down the street, pulling prank after glorious prank, Jack strolled calmly down the sidewalk. To the casual observer, he was the very image of cool, calm, and collected. But look a little closer, and certain signs became obvious: a tension in his back, a nervous tic in his jaw, a restless stare in his eyes.

Jack wasn't causing mischief, and it was driving him crazy.

On the sidewalks, he could see bare patches practically _screaming_ for a chunk of ice that the next passerby would skid out on. The telephone wires were begging to be frozen solid. Any one of a million pranks could be caused and it would take him hardly any effort at all.

He gritted his teeth. _No_. He had to be strong. The overgrown Easter Kangaroo had bet him twenty bucks that he couldn't go a day without pulling a single prank, and that was _not _a bet he was about to lose.

But still. His eyes darted over to a perfectly smooth snow bank. Just _one_ snowball couldn't hurt. Bunnymund would have no way of finding out, right?

Guiltily, he snatched up a handful of the fluffy white snow, blowing on it to form a perfect sphere. In delight, he looked around for the perfect target and…

…No. He couldn't do it. Just imagining the condescending look that would cross that smug rabbit's face if he were to ever find out was too much.

He sighed. "Waste of a perfectly good snowball," he muttered disappointedly, tossing the crystalline white sphere into the air as high as it would go.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I was in the middle of listening to a wish when it happened.

Not that that's any different. I'm _always _in the middle of granting a wish.

Far below on Earth, a little boy named Henry was praying fervently to me about his teacher, Mrs. Prosser. I have to say, I couldn't blame him.

I'd seen Mrs. Prosser before, even granted a few of her wishes (which I ended up kicking myself for later). She was about as interesting as a blender instruction manual and said things like "Now boys and girls," in a tone that suggested she was talking to shelf full of china dolls instead of a classroom full of fourth graders who weren't buying any of her BS. She taught extensively on the benefits of play and how the great outdoors was "good for children," but truthfully, the most she had in connection with nature was that her Chevy once ran over a squirrel.

There is a special circle of hell reserved for teachers like Mrs. Prosser.

"And so, Miss Star, I wish that you would turn Mrs. Prosser into a ferret," Henry said with conviction.

I smiled. Well, maybe not a _ferret_—those cost an awful lot to feed. A nice toad would do just as well and would be a whole lot easier to care for, to boot. I raised my hand—

And was hit in the gut by a cold, flying, spherical object sent hurtling my way by some _idiot_ down on Earth.

Here's the thing about floating in the sky: it doesn't take a whole lot to knock you out of it. After all, just think of all the thousands of stars that fall each year. Maybe it's something about the way the Void is made, or maybe all us stars are so bored that we're _willing _to get knocked out of the sky, but either way, just a tiny bit of force is enough to send you toppling.

So when the strange round object—which I learned later is called a _snowball_—hit me square in the gut, well, you can guess what I did then.

I fell.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

A brilliant white light flashed through North's floor-to-ceiling windows, mildly burning the retinas of all who observed it.

There were a couple seconds of silence to allow for the viewers to comprehend that they weren't, in fact, imagining things. Then, in the tones of one who has just watched a three-year-old perform calculus, Bunnymund said, "What was _that_?"

He turned away from Jack Frost, who he'd been mocking for losing their little bet, and turned to the window, pressing his paws against the glass and straining to see the light again, somewhere in the pitch-black darkness.

Jack Frost, too, turned from insisting that freezing the engine (and tires and body) of _one little car_ does _not _count as a prank, not when the car belonged to a bank robber. "What _was _that?" he gasped, running to where Bunny was already standing and straining his eyes, too, in hopes he'd catch a glimpse of it again.

Toothiana rolled her eyes. "_Boys,_" she said, shaking her head, then turned to North. "But seriously, North, what _was _that?"

North shook his head, still in shock. "I've _no _idea."

Only Sandy, over in the corner, had any idea what it was. A little star, made of sand, twirled above his head. Naturally, no one turned to look at him, all preferring to stare at the window in shock.

Sometimes, even the Sandman wished he'd speak up a bit.

In frustration, Sandy hurled a ball of sand at the nearest yeti, who promptly fell asleep into a vat of blue paint, sending showers of blue all across the room, hitting everyone within a hundred yards.

_That _surse got everyone's attention.

"Sandy, what…" North turned, then saw the shape floating above the Sandman's head. "Oh. So that's what it was," he whispered. "Poor girl."

"What, a _star?_" Jack Frost asked incredulously. "I thought those were like, giant balls of flaming gas or something." He was pretty proud of that knowledge. He'd gleaned it from a page of Astronomy notes that he'd once swiped off a kid's desk. Of course, the only reason he remembered that sentence was because it had cracked him up, but still…

Bunnymund rolled his eyes. "Of _course_ they aren't. Not the real Stars."

Jack shot Bunnymund a glare, and Toothiana said gently, "I think what Bunnymund _means_ to say is that there'_s _stars, and then there's _Stars. _Stars really _are _giant flaming balls of gas and dust, but Stars, _the _Stars, are a race that lives with MiM. Some act as his helpers, and some watch over the world, granting the wishes of those down below."

"So you're saying that that light was a _person_?"

"More or less."

North sighed. "Ze poor girl," he said again, shaking his head. "Surviving a fall like that is almost impossible. We should find her. Give her a proper burial."

Toothiana nodded. "It's the right thing to do," she said sadly.

Bunnymund shook his head. "Poor MiM. Remember the last time one of his stars fell? The eclipse lasted for _months_."

A sad face appeared above Sandman's head. There was a brief moment of silence, but it was soon filled with the sound of a rubber giraffe hitting an elf on the head.

Jack felt his stomach turn. "Wait…she's _dead_?"

Bunnymund brushed a tear from his eye. "Well…probably. There is a _slight _chance she could survive, but it's so unlikely…"

"But she might _not _be dead?"

"Well…"

"We should find her! Help her! That's our _job_, isn't it? We could…"

"Jack." North put a huge hand on Jack's shoulder. "Yes, she might _not_ be dead. But ze chance of that is so small zat eet's _never _happened before. We can go looking for her. But…don't get your hopes up, okay?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I woke up to an intense, bitter cold, followed close behind by a hot, burning pain, so awful that I couldn't even moan.

I coughed weakly as I felt the snow settle down around me. _I'm gonna be feeling _that _in the morning, _I thought, followed closely by _Wait…I'm _thinking? _Aren't I supposed to be dead?_

Gingerly, I tried to sit up, sending another spasm of pain through my back. This time, though, it wasn't so terrible that I was left speechless.

"Fuck," I said softly, then winced, knowing that stars aren't supposed to use language like that. "Fuck," I moaned again at regular volume, and felt much better.

Eventually I _did _manage to sit up, though doing so felt like someone was digging my guts out with a bendy straw. _Pain_, I thought. Pain was new. There was no room for pain up in the heavens. There wasn't much room for anything else, either, what with all our time being taken up by granting the wishes of humans (or, in the case of some stars, the wishes of birds or cats or fish or various small kitchen appliances).

So even though the pain was, well _painful_, in a weird way it was sort of good, too. I smiled. "Pain," I said happily.

The pain was most concentrated at my side, so I gingerly touched my fingers to it. They came away covered in a sticky, warm red liquid. I gasped. I had never seen anything so _colorful _before. Stars tend to dress in shades of white or silvery, or in the case of the crazier ones, light pastel (for example, Betelgeuse prefers a reddish-pink color), but this—this was something new. This was red of the purest, brightest sort.

My addled brain supplied the word _"blood."_ Blood was good, I knew. Blood was essential for life. And blood was something that _humans _had. I smiled. "Blood," I said happily. I smeared some of the blood on the frosty white snow, where it filtered in and turned the whiteness a sort of light pink. I grinned. "Blood," I said again, shaking my head in wonder. I lifted my bloodstained fingers up to my nose, the smell was strangely metallic. I even went so far as to touch the tip of my tongue to the red liquid, which turned out to be a very bad idea. A salty, rusty taste filled my mouth. "Blood," I gagged, not sounding—or feeling—half so delighted as I had before.

After I cleared the awful taste out of my mouth, I managed to shakily stand up. My legs and knees protested for a while, but eventually were forced to give in to sheer willpower.

The snow froze my bare feet and I shivered with cold, which is no wonder considering what I was wearing. The dress was exactly what you'd expect a star to wear in that it was thin, gauzy, iridescent, and completely impractical. It was little more than a shift that'd been gathered at my waist, made of an opaque yet iridescent white material so thin I couldn't feel it. In the cold, a cold that called for a coat that weighs more than the person wearing it, that wasn't a good thing.

The world was covered in a blanket of snow, and fat, wet flakes drifted lazily down from the clouds, each taking its own sweet time about reaching the Earth. It was still sunny, though, despite the cloud cover, and over to the west was a gap in the clouds that revealed the most startling shade of piercing ice blue I'd ever seen. It was so beautiful that I stood staring at it for just a moment. I'd never once suspected that the sky looked like that from below.

I took a couple shaky footsteps, marveling at the tracks I left in the snow. The bloody spot on my side complained with every movement, though, making it rather difficult to do anything. Finally, I had to stop out of pain and frustration.

"You stop that," I told the wound, and surprisingly, it obeyed. Oh sure, it was still gushing the same red stuff, the _blood_, but it wasn't nearly so vocal about it, which had to be a good thing. Right?

Once the pain was gone, I was free to walk about unhindered, and so I did. I had landed in a forest on top of a spiky huckleberry bush that was still there in that all of its molecules were still within a hundred-mile radius. There was a small dent in the snow and a wide crater around it, stretching a good hundred yards in each direction.

There were trees there, too. I smiled in childish delight; I had never seen a proper tree before. Gently, I ran my fingers over the rough bark of the nearest one, marveling at the rough furrows in the wood and the fresh smell of the bristly branches that hung in my face. A tiny furry creature with a thin, striped tail scurried and chattered in the branches above me, knocking green needles into my hair. I laughed at its antics as my brain supplied me with a name: Chipmunk.

It was right about then that it hit me: I was on _Earth. _The place I'd dreamed about for so very long, the place I'd watched over every night. No star was ever allowed to visit except in extreme emergencies. (Naturally, falling over a hundred miles was considered an emergency.)

A strange, warm, syrupy feeling slowly filled me. _Joy. _Laughing in delight, I whirled to another tree and examined that one as well, feeling the smooth, white, papery bark. This tree had a symbol carved into it: a heart with the initials JL + MC inscribed inside. I smiled. I remembered JL, or rather, Jacob Lowry. He had been just a little slip of a thing when he asked me to make the girl of his dreams notice him. Who was she again…? Oh yes, Martha. I gave a little smile, glad to see that it had worked out.

And then the joy took over again and I was left sprinting through the forest, leaping over frozen creeks and hollow logs, stumbling through snow banks, darting around trees and bushes, all the while laughing in exhilaration. The cold air, the snow, the trees, the little birds that flitted around my head: all of it was wonderful. Amazing. Perfect. If the whole world was this wonderful, then I wanted to see it all.

I had planned on running forever but was eventually forced to stop due to lack of oxygen. That confused me a bit: I was pretty sure I'd never needed oxygen before, yet there was no convincing my lungs of that. It was strange how many things the body demanded once it was on Earth.

I collapsed in the snow, smiling as the cold wetness seeped its way into my hair and dress, panting for air.

After I'd regained enough oxygen, I got up slowly, taking in every detail of my surroundings. I was in another small, snow-covered clearing, but this one was different than the one I had fallen into. The trees, for one, were thicker in the forest here, but ringing the edge of the clearing as though they were afraid to grow into it. Which was strange, as the only thing in the clearing was a hunk of rotting wood in the dead center. Well, a hunk of rotting wood nailed into a strange shape and set over what looked like a yawning dark pit. Completely harmless, yet something about it sent a chill down my spine.

I approached the hunk of wood, ran my fingers over it, and winced as I got a handful of splinters. I recognized the shape now as one that so many children made their wishes from: a bed. Only this bed was nothing like a proper decent bed; it didn't even have a mattress. It was just a splintery frame with a rotting-out center. It ought to have been tossed in the nearest bonfire.

"Like it?" said a voice.

I gasped in shock and fear (yes, _fear_, that was new), and whirled around to face the person behind me.

Or well, not really a person. More like… a lack of a person. A darkness. Yes, that was the word for it: Darkness.

It was as if all the shadows of the world had coagulated and formed this…blob. And the blob had arms and legs and a head, like a person, but it was not a person. Not at all.

A crack appeared in the darkness' face—on anything else it might have been a smile. "Well, well, well. What have we here?" It smiled and a tendril of darkness reached out to brush the hair from my face. I flinched. "Ah, a little star. So beautiful. Yet far from your home, I think?"

"Who-who are you?" I asked, then, ashamed of the stutter in my voice, coughed and asked the question again. "I mean, who are you?" This time, I was satisfied with my tone.

The darkness swirled around me, and I could have _sworn_ that it chuckled. "A friend," it said. "I've come to…_help _you." It tutted. "And it looks like you need the help. Look at that nasty cut you've gotten yourself." The darkness pressed what looked like a hand against my side for a couple seconds, then drew it away. The blood that had been staining my side was gone, but I now had a shadowy patch that looked like my bare skin but was a greyish-black instead of an almost white.

I gasped, clawing at the patch on my side. "Wh-what did you _do _to me?" I squeaked.

The shadow laughed. "Why, I healed you. I thought you wanted my help. After all, a little star, new to Earth…you have so much to ask, don't you?"

I gulped. I knew I shouldn't talk with that…_thing_, but there _was_ something I wanted to know. "What's down there?" I asked, gesturing towards the dilapidated bed.

If it were possible for shadows to look sad, the darkness would have. "An old friend," he said. "Wrongfully imprisoned in his own home by the cruel Guardians themselves."

I turned away. I'd never seen the Guardians, but I knew that MiM himself had chosen them. If MiM had chosen them, they wouldn't be the sort of people to do something like that, right? I was about to get the hell out of Dodge when I felt a pressure on my wrist. The Darkness had grabbed me, stopping me from leaving.

"He does so wish to be freed," the shadow said.

I stiffened. I should have left; I _knew_ I should. But wishes…that was my _job_. I couldn't just ignore a wish.

I turned. "I'd need to hear it from him," I said reluctantly. "Otherwise, it doesn't count."

The crack in the shadow's face spread wider than before. "That can be arranged."

* * *

**Well...All I can say is that I hope you liked it.**

**Really, if you enjoyed this even the teeniest bit, please review. I would so love to hear from you. Constructive criticism is also amazing!**

**Thank you so much, guys!**

**Ciao!**


	3. Pitch's Wish

**Oh my God, guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH!**

**Eleven reviews! On my _second chapter_! And I don't even know how many favorites and follows!**

**Thankyouthankyouthankyouthan kyouthankyou!**

**You guys are so amazing! I don't deserve such amazing people reading this story. But thank you so much!**

**Ahhhhhhhh!**

**Okay, I'm good now.**

**Anyway, here's the third chappie! Hope you enjoy! And I don't own RotG.**

* * *

The cave that the shadow lead me into was suffocatingly dark. My skin gave off an off-white glow, like all stars' skin, which illuminated the cavern somewhat, but I could still almost feel the darkness pressing in around me. The shadows seemed to form themselves into shapes, monsters, hands reaching out to grab me…

"We're here," the shadow said suddenly. I jumped at the noise. The shadow chuckled at this but said nothing.

This room was a bit brighter, with a grey light filtering in from somewhere far above. I could just make out the shape of a globe, the continents like puzzle pieces but dark and cold and empty. Huge, heavy wrought-iron cages hung from the ceiling and lined the walls. The whole chamber appeared deserted.

"Master," I heard the shadow say. "I have brought someone to see you."

Over in a cage in the farthest corner, something shifted. Suddenly, the emptiness was a _person_. Or well, I _think_ a person. It had all the right number of limbs so it should probably be given the benefit of the doubt.

The shadow nudged me in the back. "Go on," it said. "The master wants to see you."

I gulped but walked cautiously forward, the dark pebbles on the floor digging into my bare feet. Over in the cage, the person-thing smiled, revealing rows of sharp, pointed teeth, like a shark. It was wearing a single dark robe that should probably have looked filthy but didn't, and its skin was a pale greyish-white.

"A little Star," it—no, he, it would have to be a he—said with a smile. "I must say, I haven't seen a living Star for a good four hundred years. However did you survive the fall?"

I chose not to answer, both because the man scared me and because I really didn't know. As I stood, scrutinizing the figure in the cage, he continued. "I do hope my Shadow treated you well. Do you like that, a Shadow? Just a Nightmare in human form, really, yet it has so many interesting uses. Vocal cords, for example. Tell me…" He babbled on, but I stopped listening. Instead I kneeled down, put my hands on the wrought-iron bars of the cage. The man looked so familiar, and yet…

"Who _are_ you?" I interrupted, wrinkling my brow in confusion.

The man chuckled. It wasn't a nice chuckle, though—it was the chuckle of a man who kills butterflies for fun. "Why, hasn't the Man in the Moon told you? I thought he told his Stars everything." He gave a little tut. "No matter, I can introduce myself. My name is Pitch Black."

I gasped and stumble backwards. "So you do know me," Pitch Black said, the pleasure in his voice evident.

I nodded. "Yes, I know you. I know you're _insane_."

"I prefer the term _misguided_."

I shook my head. "I heard you tried to take over the world."

He shrugged. "True."

"I also heard you got your ass handed to you."

He glared at me. "Yes, I _did_ try to take over the world," he said, blatantly ignoring my previous statement. "But being down here, all alone and with nothing but my shadow—you saw him earlier—and the Nightmares for company, has made me think. And I have changed my ways."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure. That's about as likely as getting a lion to become a vegetarian."

He smiled. "Unlikely but true. Besides, I can't stay here. The world _needs_ me."

"Needs fear? Most people need fear like they need a hole in the head," I snorted, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Like it or not, people need fear more than they realize. You know that, I think. You yourself woke up after falling hundreds of miles. You should have been terrified. Yet you felt nothing." His dark eyes bored into my pale ones. "Like it or not, fear protects people. It gives them something to strive for and keeps them from doing stupid things. The world without fear is unbalanced and unstable."

I turned. "Not my problem."

"Oh, I think it is." I turned back to see Pitch grinning at me. "See, it's _your_ world, too. "

"No. It's not," I said, leveling my head to look him in the eyes. "It's the humans' world. Not mine. So what do you really want me for?"

"Why, I would think it's obvious. You're the Wishing Star, darling. And I _wish _to be free."

I tensed at those words and he laughed. "Of course, you wouldn't have to _grant_ that wish. But you want to, don't you? It's in your nature. It _hurts_ to know you can't grant a wish."

It was true. Technically, Stars don't _have _to grant every wish. But not granting a wish, well, it _hurts. _It contradicts out very nature and for a spirit, doing something like that is enough to rip your essence apart. We can no more resist granting wishes than an elderly mosquito can resist a flamethrower.

So I was already grimacing, knowing that granting one of Pitch's wishes would be a worst-case scenario, but not knowing how I could possibly resist, when Pitch said, "Of course, I _could_ sweeten the deal."

I grimaced, the pain already twisting through my gut, but manage to spit out, "What are you talking about?"

As I fell to the ground, I heard Pitch say, "You're the Wishing Star, but tell me…when's the last time _you _ever got a wish? Oh, that's right: never. You can't grant your wishes, can you?" He laughed. "But I can. I know what you wish for in the quiet of your heart. You want to _know_. You want to know who you are and why the Moon chose you. And here's the thing—" he leaned down to where I was curled up in agony on the floor, pressing his face to the bars of the cage, "—_I can tell you_."

I cried out as a jolt of pain spasmed its way through my body. Pitch let out an awful laugh. "You won't be able to resist it forever," he howled. "The longer you're near me, the more you'll need to grant my wish. To free me."

I screamed as white-hot pain seared my head, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, but still heard Pitch confidently say, "It's only a matter of time."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

It was obvious where the star had landed. The snowy forest looked like the blast site for a miniature nuclear warhead—trees were knocked over, bushes had been destroyed, there was even a crater in the center of the clearing with a person-shaped hole in the center.

However, there was no person.

"Hah! What did I say?" Jack Frost crowed. He grinned, tossing an arm around Bunnymund, who quickly shrugged it off. "I hate to say 'I told you so,' but…I _so _told you so."

"Just because she's not _here _doesn't mean she's _alive_, mate," Bunnymund glared at Jack, brushing off his shoulder where Jack had touched it.

"Maybe not, but would a dead person leave footprints?" Jack grinned pointing to a set of clearly defined tracks in the wet snow.

"Jack's right," the Tooth Fairy said, sounding shocked. "She _is_ alive."

"But vere did she go? A star on her own—could be anyvere," North said, already following the trail of footprints. A golden question mark manifested itself over the Sandman's head.

Suddenly, a blood-curding scream pierced the frigid air, startling a nearby flock of birds into flight.

"Guys," Jack said with a sinking heart, "I think I know where she is."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I pressed my head against the cool floor, but at that point, it didn't help alleviate the pain at all. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I didn't pause to brush them away or marvel that it was the first time that I'd ever cried. The pain that just an hour ago was such a good thing, such a _human_ thing, was now making me shriek in agony. How the hell could humans stand this?

"How long, do you suppose?" Pitch mocked me. "How long until you can't resist anymore? Until you're forced to grant my wish?"

"I hope you're prepared to wait, Pitch," I hissed through clenched teeth. "Because it's gonna be a long, long time until I free you."

"Oh, come now. We both know that's not true. I'd say…ten minutes? Maybe fifteen? Of course, if you could get away from me, it'd be a lot longer. It's a lot easier to resist when the person who made the wish isn't in the same room, am I right?" Laughing, he reached a hand through the bars and tapped a finger on my neck, his touch sending another jolt of pain through my system. I cringed, clutching my head and howling in pain. Which, of course, only made Pitch laugh harder.

For a star, granting a wish is like breathing. It comes so naturally that most of the time you don't even think about it. But when you're forced to go without it for a while, it feels like an elephant is sitting on your chest. And, just like breathing, it's impossible to stop it by yourself. Oh, sure, you can delay it for a while, but when it comes down to it, you grant wishes whether you want to or not. Willpower can only go so far.

Up in the heavens, resisting a wish isn't so hard. It hurts a bit, true, and if you go about doing it often, it'll probably kill you, but because you're so close to the Moon and so far from the wisher, it's not that bad. But the closer you are to the wisher, the harder it gets, and _here_, in the same room as Pitch—it felt like a steamroller was slowly going over me and then backing up to make sure it got the job done.

I could feel myself already gearing up to grant Pitch's wish, the magic welling up inside me, my natural instincts at war with my willpower. Pitch, however, was wrong in his guess. I couldn't go ten minutes like this. More like two.

I could hear faint voices and footsteps through the haze of pain, people coming down one of the tunnels. Pitch tutted. "Oh, oh. Look who's coming. The Guardians. I wonder," he leaned down to whisper in my ear, "if they'll get here in time?"

I whimpered and squeezed my eyes shut tighter. I could hear the voices properly now:

"This way!"

"Can you see her?"

"Oi! Watch where you swing that staff of yours, Frosty!"

"Bite me, Kangaroo!"

And so on.

I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming and the taste of iron flooded my mouth. _Please,_ I prayed to MiM. _Please, MiM, let them get here in time. Don't let me grant Pitch's wish. Please…_

"There she is!" The voice echoed around the chamber, and I just made out the shape of a boy with snow-white hair holding a staff when…

"Three. Two. _One," _Pitch counted down.

The dam broke. The magic that had been welling up inside me finally wormed its way out in a brief, retina-searing flash of white light. Behind the light, the door to Pitch's cage swung calmly open.

"At last!" Pitch cried, grinning like a pyromaniac in a match factory. "After six long years, I'm _free_!"

The same darkness that had led me here expanded, swirling into people and horses and hundreds of other forms: an army of shadows. Pitch's Nightmares.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see the chaos I'd caused. But I didn't need to. I could hear the screams and struggles of the Guardians, but worse, I could hear Pitch's voice in my ear. "Thank you, sweetheart," it said. "Unfortunately, you've been so helpful that I simply can't allow you to leave just yet. You're coming with me."

Something struck me—hard—at the base of my skull. There was one last jolt of white-hot pain, but before I had a chance to cry out, the world faded to black.

* * *

**So...did you like it? Please let me know! Thanks!**


	4. Hate

**Sorry I took so long, guys! But I hope you like this!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own ROTG.**

* * *

When I woke, I was dangling upside-down.

Fortunately, that didn't last, because as soon as my eyes flickered open, the Nightmare who had the folds of my robe clamped in its shadowy teeth released its hold on me and I plummeted a good ten feet to the hard rooftop below.

I slammed into the brick, knocking the wind out of my lungs and leaving me gasping like a fish on the hard rooftop. As soon as I recovered, I rolled over and spilled my guts onto the brick, which was strange, as I hadn't eaten anything _to _vomit . As I laid moaning, a pair of dark boots appeared in my field of vision. "Awake at last," Pitch sneered down at me.

"Nice to see you, too," I moaned, scraping myself up off the ground.

Pitch watched my struggle to stand, an amused smile flickering across his face. "I have to say," he admitted, "I've never had my own star before. I've so much to wish for. Let's see…"

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," I stopped him with a small, "I-know-something-you-don't-know" smirk.

"Whyever not?"

"That little trick back in the cave was harder on me than you think. I think you've seen that I'm basically compelled to grant every wish you throw at me, but without enough juice, results can be…unpredictable."

"Unpredictable _how_?"

"Unpredictable like wish-for-world-domination-and-end-up-with-a-vase-of-dead-flowers-and-a-bucket-of-elephant-shit-on-your-head unpredictable. Though if you'd care to test it, I'd be more than happy to—"

"No, no, no need," Pitch says hurriedly, grimacing from my lovely description. "I can wait. Besides, I have more _important _matters to tend to first."

"Such as?"

He grins. "We've got a trip to make."

"_We? _What _we?_ Sorry, sunshine, but the crazy train stops here. Ta-ta." I wiggle my fingers in a half-hearted farewell and turn to step off the rooftop and plummet to the dark pavement of the city below. Er, well, not plummet, exactly…more like float, hopefully. I haven't quite got that technique down just yet. Can stars fly, anyways?

He stops me, grabbing my wrist and refusing to let go. He leans his head down and uses his free hand to brush the hair away from my cheek. I flinch as he sneers, "Oh, I do so _wish _you'd go with me, darling."

I stiffen, but I already know I don't have enough energy to resist. It's a wish, and since Pitch wished for me to go with him to…well, to _wherever_, I'm bound to him until we get there. "Might I ask where we're going?"

This time, Pitch really grins, a grin that makes me want to head for the hills. Too bad I'm wish-bound to stay with him. "We're going," he says overdramatically, "to the North Pole."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The Guardians filed into Santa's workshop, exhausted from their long battle with the Nightmares. And it shows: Bunnymund is limping, dragging an injured leg, Tooth's wings are crumpled and bare where her feathers have been ripped off, Jack is nursing a collection of new bruises. Even North is dabbing at a fresh cut above his eyebrow.

Jack collapsed on the nearest window ledge. "So that was her. The star." The girl he'd seen had hardly looked like the serene, twinkling lights he'd seen in the sky. Oh, sure, she was pale, with long, white-blonde hair, but she didn't look like a star. Not in that condition, anyway, curled up and screaming in agony, her chiffon dress stained with crimson, her hair tangled and messy, bruises forming on her legs. She looked—broken. But the strange thing was that Pitch hadn't even been _touching _her.

"Yes. That was the star," Santa said, carefully cleaning his two machetes. "Haven't seen real star in long, long time."

"What was wrong with her?"

Tooth frowned in pity (and in pain as a Yeti carefully bandaged her wings.) "She was granting a wish."

"You mean _that _happens whenever a star grants a wish?" Jack felt his stomach turn in disgust.

"No. She was granting a wish against her will. Jack, Pitch wished to be freed. It's a star's job to grant wishes, but she knew she couldn't grant one like that. So she tried to stop it." Tooth shook her head in pity. "It must've been killing her."

Bunnymund sighed. "And now Pitch is back." He flopped down at one of the tables and absently twirled his boomerang on the smooth wooden surface. "He's stronger this time, too," he said dejectedly.

"And with the Star on his side, Pitch is almost invincible," North put in.

Jack leaned on his staff and rubbed absently at one of his many bruises. He stared out the window and into the white, never-ending fields of snow, the ones with the hazy blue mountains in the distance. The sky today was a piercing blue, and the haze of darkness just barely visible on the horizon…

Wait. _Haze of darkness?_

Jack gripped is staff a little tighter. "Guys. He's _here_."

There was a chorus of "_What?"_s from the other four Guardians. Jack could tell they were afraid. Who wouldn't be? But if Pitch came back, then the kids would all be in trouble. He felt a pang of worry as he thought of Jamie. What if…

_No. _He wasn't going to think like that. Instead, he smiled in anticipation. He'd taken Pitch down once before.

And he was going to have a helluva good time doing it again.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Pitch had gagged me, tied my wrists with a shadowy rope, and put me on his second-fastest nightmare. This was largely unnecessary: I was wish-bound to Pitch, it wasn't like I was going anywhere. A normal girl might have been sort of angry at this, but it gave me a perverse sense of pride. It meant that, even in my weakened state, even though I was more or less obligated to obey Pitch's every command, he was still scared of me. Dead scared.

He was right to be. He'd make a mistake sometime. Most wishes had loopholes you could back a semi through if you knew where to look. Sooner or later, I'd find one. And once I did, I'd kick his ass into next Tuesday.

The landscape quickly changed underneath us as we soared across the sky, the city below leveling out into a snowy forest, then even the trees becoming sparser, replaced with icy crags and outcrops and, for a while, a roiling, dark ocean. I watched it all in awe and delight, amazed at the Earth that I'd never really gotten to see up close before.

The air got steadily colder as we headed North, the cold wind whipping my hair and sending shivers down my bare arms and legs. Still, whenever Pitch looked my way, I pretended like everything was fine and I _wasn't_ freezing my ass off. I was _not _giving him the satisfaction of seeing me freezing.

As we rode, I started to plan out ways to get out of Pitch's damn wish.

There had to be a way. There was _always_ a way. I just had to find it.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The blackness was growing rapidly. What had once looked, to the Guardians, like a shadowy smudge on the horizon, was morphing into a set of thunderheads, growing larger and larger until it was _obvious_ that they were Pitch's nightmares. There were thousands—_millions_—of them.

Pitch had been busy.

And there, just barely visible from Santa's workshop, was Pitch's chariot, right out in front. And the little gleam of white next to him was the Star.

Every siren in the Workshop was going off, all at once, whistling and screaming and wailing the warning that everyone knew: Pitch was here. The Yetis had abandoned their toymaking and instead taken up positions around the Workshop to defend it. The Guardians had done the same, each tense in anticipation as they waited for the inevitable. The normal deathly silence of the Pole was broken by the sound of a million Nightmares approaching and a wicked cackle above it all.

Pitch had come.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Oh, look," Pitch said with a grin in my direction. "They've come out to greet us. Isn't that sweet?"

I managed to avoid rolling my eyes _too _much because I had thought of a possible loophole for Pitch's wish. True, it involved kidnapping seven Yetis and twelve elves and hijacking Santa's sleigh, but I was _sure _I could pull it off with just a little luck.

Then Pitch flicked his wrist and the gag and bonds flew off, evaporating back into shadows. I was about to dive for the snow, but one of the nightmares caught me just in time.

"Ah, ah, ah," Pitch said, wagging a slim finger. "I have a wish, no?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for the inevitable. "See those Guardians down there?" he whispered in my ear. "I _wish_…" he paused for effect, "….that you would _hate _them. I wish that you would do everything and anything in your power to see them wiped off the face of the Earth." He leaned back and flicked his wrist, commanding the Nightmare to release me. "Have fun with that, little star," he sneered.

"Pitch, have you gone bat-shit insane? I don't—" I paused. I was going to say _I don't hate the Guardians, _but once I thought about it…

I sort of did.

Something whispered that I _didn't _ hate the Guardians, that it was just Pitch's wish, but as we drew closer, something else said that I _did _hate them. I detested them. The way they stayed on Earth, having fun, being believed in, while I was trapped in the darkness of the heavens. I hated them. All of them. North, Toothiana, Bunnymund, the Sandman, Jack Frost…I had never much thought about them before, but now I couldn't believe how much I loathed them. It felt like a dark blackness brewing inside me, a hot, fiery hatred.

Their faces drew closer, their features grew more distinct as we neared them. A smile flicked across my face as I remembered the second part of Pitch's wish.

"_Do everything in your power to see them wiped off the face of the Earth."_

This was going to be fun.


End file.
